Solitons in String Theory

Abstract

The next few sections consider the construction of the Tangherlini black hole in string theory as first done by Strominger and Vafa (Phys Lett B, 379:99–104, 1996, [15]). We will look at the construction of D- and p-branes, the compactification of superstring theories, and the construction of black holes from charges associated to the branes. Using a stringy version of the electromagnetic duality, we can express the black hole entropy in terms of both the event horizon area and the number of microstates. We will see that the entropy is given by \(S=\frac{A}{4} = \ln \Omega \), where A is the event horizon area and \(\Omega \) is the number of microstates, which shows the statistical origin of the entropy of stringy black holes. These sections are based on the review found at Haack (4th National Summer School for German-speaking Graduate Students of Theoretical Physics Saalburg, 1998, [16]).